Submarines

[j.sabourn]

I attended a talk today at my present Probus club giving by one of its members ,and the theme was on submarines. It was not political but from an ex middle to top
Ex senior officer out of the RN and also the RAN. Whilst directed to an audience of mainly non seafarers , to me I was able to follow his line of practical thinking , and I totally agree with the cancellation of the French project, they have had 4 years to produce nothing , the choices are obviously nuclear if want to keep up with the times and the British version is cheaper than the American. If not nuclear then the stories put about by the Collins Class put about by the media are erroneous in a lot of ways. In his views as a practicing submariner it was a good vessel. Politics as usual should not be the deciding decision , it should be people who know their job , and able to carry out the same. Anyone with 40 years in submarines to me knows more about them than any upstart Polly or media mogul . JS

[Les Woodard]

We all know that the submarine contract is political and has been from the start. Firstly it was to prop up C Pyne for the coming election at the time. What I can not understand is that Turnball refused the nuclear subs from the french and wanted them converted to diesel at great expense. Futhermore it seems that the nuclear power of the frensh subs are a much lower grade than the UK and USA who use weapon grade uranium Now there is a movement to lease or purchase second hand sub from UK or USA who in my opinion would love to do that. They would be getting rid of their old subs that when time to decommission them is a headache that no country wants to face especially with weapon grade uranium in them. So summing up it seems that the safest and cheapest way might be to stick with the frogs. Personally think that by the time these are built that submarines will be redundant anyway Not to mention that the crews for them are not yet born. Who can recall our great leader of the day purchasing those tanks from the USA and the amount spent to refit them out and what bloddy use are they in a country this size.

[j.sabourn]

Any futuristic submarine if it is not of the boomer class is going to be ineffective in any future hostility’s . A submarine that cannot remain at sea for indefinite periods of time and hidden, is going to be an easy target, myself who was involved in underwater warfare for a few years , some of the info. Received was bound to rub off. For those who know even less than me about submarine warfare a boomer is the term given to a submarine nuclear power and nuclear warheads . Synomoneous with Big Bang I should imagine . Cheers JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I have been reading the book Nautilus about the first sub to sail a route under the North Pole, the what I call the Ahern, Ahern bullshit starts at the beginning and runs through it, I was a great achievement but why all the bull dust, this is written by the Captain who took her under the ice, which was no doubt a great achievement, but if you ask anyone now they wouldn't have a clue that it had happened. I think that John is right the subs we will get will be a disaster waiting to happen when they want to decommission them, which will be very soon as they are old.
Des

[j.sabourn]

#4. Des have already put a post up about the first commissioned RN submarine in I think either 1912 or 1913 , called the Hollande 1, built on the Mersey and lost on its passage round to either Plymouth or Portsmouth the same year. We found it on our fishfinder about 1980 on our way from NW Scotland to Portsmouth . It was later salvaged and put on display in the submarine museum in Gosport , so got to see it free . It bears little resemblance to today’s subs or even WW11 vessels , as only had a crew of I think 3. When she foundered off the Eddystone in 1912 there was no loss of life . But as said today any resemblance to , today’s subs is purely coincidental . Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

All wrong according to the GREENS,
They say we do not need them and if the Chinese get agressive we should just sit and talk it through with them.
That one assumes would be after they have taken the country over.

[j.sabourn]

Well they can’t get into WA without going into Quarantine first ? JS

[Keith Tindell]

Ref 5, This is in the local news on finding lost submarines.
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/de...tmouth-4204049